Let’s Do This!: Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat

Hi everyone! This is my first post on The Cookbook Section, and I’m very excited to get started. This is a blog for talking about cookbooks (and maybe some other books thrown in now and then). I love to read and to cook, and I love to combine the two. Unlike some people, I think that cookbooks should be read. A great cookbook should have great recipes and look beautiful, but it should also be fun to read.

On this site, I will review cookbooks of all kinds, from serious to celebrity, from paleo to country cooking. I will test out a recipe or two to share. But most of all, I will let you know if the cookbook is worth being read. Also, I want to hear from you. Let me know if you agree or disagree with my reviews. And let me know about your favorite cookbooks. Okay, enough chatter. Let’s do this!

The cookbook I want to start with is Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking by Samin Nosrat, who is a writer and a chef and was called “the next Julia Child.” This is an excellent cookbook for reading. In fact, it doesn’t have a ton of step-by-step recipes. In this book, Samin Nosrat describes her philosophy of cooking–master salt, fat, acid, and you guessed it, heat to make everything you cook delicious. I learned a ton from reading this book, and it’s already changed the way that I cook.

Samin Nosrat is an Iranian-American chef and food writer. Her Persian heritage definitely shows up in her cooking, which I love, because it’s great to learn more about the foods of different cultures. My husband’s family is Lebanese, so I have familiarity with Middle-Eastern cuisine, but some of these Persian recipes were new to me. GIVE SOME EXAMPLES Nosrat is a regular food columnist for The New York Times, and this is her first cookbook. As she mentions in the book she worked with Alice Waters at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, CA, so she has some very impressive credentials. She has worked in Italy and other Berekeley-area restaurants. She also worked with Michael Pollan.

The book includes sections on each of the four words in the title. I think the chapter that changed the way I cook the most, is the one about salt. One of her major point is that we need to think about when we salt different foods. I found this YouTube video where she explains How to Use Salt. Each section has some fascinating information that will really make you think more about the chemical processes that are happening when you cook.

Check back on Wednesday, and I will let you know how one of the recipes from Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat turned out.